big eye tuna al tarocco

This was the first dish where I was at a decided disadvantage not being in Florida.

I ran through the ingredient list on this one, and was like, yeah, I want tuna for dinner tonight. Let's do this thing.

So I went to BlackSalt and picked up a beautiful hunk of tuna. Then I went to get everything else.

Shiitake. Done. Radicchio. In there. Mizuna. Got it.

Blood orange. Blood orange? Where's the blood orange?

Turns out that here, some citrus is seasonal. That never really happened in Florida.

So now I had a fairly expensive chunk of fish and most of the parts I needed to do the dish, but no blood orange.

Worse: The name of the dish is Big Eye Tuna al Tarocco. Guess what Tarocco is?

Blood orange.

So, I called everywhere, and was told I would not be likely to find a blood orange anywhere in D.C. for several months. So I bought an orange orange.

I thought I'd get smart and soak orange segments in Aperol, a digestif that has a bitter-citrus flavor and the color of blood orange.

That didn't really work.

So, technically, what I have here is Big Eye Tuna al Arancio. And for now, that's fine. 

Up next: ceci bruschetta